Class action calls RCMP ‘toxic’ environment

VANCOUVER — A former female Mountie says it was common for her supervisor to prop up a naked inflatable doll next to his desk and ask her to stand beside it.

Janet Merlo, the representative plaintiff in a proposed class-action lawsuit launched Tuesday, said she was subjected to harassment, lewd comments and sexual pranks as a constable with the Nanaimo RCMP detachment from 1991 until 2010.

“It’s too late for me” Ms. Merlo said in a statement issued Tuesday, “but I hope that this lawsuit will bring about some positive change for women who are still with the RCMP and women who join in the future.”

Vancouver lawyer David Klein said his law firm, which filed the lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court, has been contacted by more than 150 female officers who feel they suffered mistreatment during their years on the force.

“There is clearly a serious problem in the RCMP,” he said. “It has been a toxic environment for women who have served on the force.”

The legal action against the federal government alleges widespread systemic discrimination by the RCMP against female members, civilian members and civil service employees.

Ms. Merlo’s notice of claim says after she returned from maternity leave in 1993, her male colleagues would make remarks to her such as: “Janet, can you take that call or are you pregnant again?”

When discussing setting up an RCMP bike patrol in Nanaimo, one officer allegedly remarked, within earshot of Ms. Merlo, “Yeah, like there are any of the ugly, fat-a—- female members in this building that can peddle a bike around all day.”

Thunder Bay lawyer Sandy Zaitzeff, one of the lawyers leading the class action lawsuit, said: “For many of these women the consequences of the bullying, harassment and discrimination have been devastating including post-traumatic stress syndrome, attempted suicides, depression, broken relationships, failed marriages and family and children PTSD.